At Reid’s request, Vice President Joe Biden helped fill the coffers last week of a Nevada Democratic congressional candidate and his state party’s political apparatus, a central cog in the Senate majority leader’s political machine.

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Harry Reid's Nevada

A couple of months earlier, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley reached out to Reid’s team to let the majority leader know he would be the main speaker at a Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner in Las Vegas for the Clark County Democratic Party. O’Malley followed up with a donation to Reid’s preferred candidate in the lieutenant governor’s race.

In September, Hillary Clinton will deliver the keynote address at Reid’s annual clean energy summit at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, after Reid asked her to speak at his prized seven-year-old event. And there are ongoing discussions about adding another Clinton event to the calendar: a fundraiser for the state party this fall, several sources said this week.

The decision to swing through Nevada two years before campaign season speaks to the state’s position as the first in the West during the presidential nominating contest in 2016. But it also highlights an indisputable fact: No matter how unpopular Reid is with Republicans, leading Democrats are eager to woo the powerful majority leader with a long memory and reputation for loyalty. His backing could be an important factor in a contested primary and even more crucial if he continues to lead Senate Democrats into the next administration, regardless of whether the party keeps its grip on the majority.

And there is no better way to win over Reid than to raise cash and help his team win elections.

Susan McCue, a party strategist who is one of the majority leader’s closest confidantes, said that an early stop in Nevada serves a third purpose as well: allowing candidates to build ties with influential party figures and hobnob with donors in Las Vegas, which is emerging as a major source of campaign cash.

“It’s a three-fer,” McCue said.

Reid, however, was blunt when asked about the early visits, pointing to one reason alone: “It’s a caucus state; it’s a very important state.” Asked how much convincing it takes to get the potential candidates to fundraise for his party’s machine in Nevada, Reid said: “They’re glad to come. Seriously.”

This year’s state elections in Nevada could have major implications for Reid’s own political future. The usually sleepy lieutenant governor’s race could help determine who Reid faces in 2016, should he run for a sixth term. That’s because it’s widely viewed that if Democrat Lucy Flores wins the race, it would be much harder for popular GOP Gov. Brian Sandoval to abandon Carson City and challenge Reid in 2016, since doing so would hand over the governor’s mansion to the other party.

“I would just encourage him to consider it at this point,” Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) said when asked of a Sandoval challenge to Reid.

So it should come as little surprise the Reid team is going all out for Flores. Reid and his longtime aide in Nevada, Rebecca Lambe, interviewed a range of candidates for the position and eventually backed Flores, who had to prove to the leader that she could win after paying for a poll that later showed she was viable. In addition to Lambe, a former Reid campaign manager is now helping the state assemblywoman’s campaign strategy, and Reid himself is raising cash for her, as he did in March at Charlie Palmer Steak on Capitol Hill and by sending a fundraising email on her behalf.

In the meantime, the state party is aggressively attacking Mark Hutchison, the GOP lieutenant governor candidate, turning the race into a proxy war between Reid and Sandoval, who is propping up the Republican’s candidacy.

“Harry talks about her constantly,” Biden said of Flores last week at the Henderson Convention Center to roughly 300 Democrats, just outside Las Vegas. “I thought she was his daughter at first.”